Search results for: team engagement

Authors: W. S. Barber, S. L. King

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This paper is a qualitative case study analysis of the development of a fully online learning community of graduate students through arts-based community building activities. With increasing numbers and types of online learning spaces, it is incumbent upon educators to continue to push the edge of what best practices look like in digital learning environments. In digital learning spaces, instructors can no longer be seen as purveyors of content knowledge to be examined at the end of a set course by a final test or exam. The rapid and fluid dissemination of information via Web 3.0 demands that we reshape our approach to teaching and learning, from one that is content-focused to one that is process-driven. Rather than having instructors as formal leaders, today’s digital learning environments require us to share expertise, as it is the collective experiences and knowledge of all students together with the instructors that help to create a very different kind of learning community. This paper focuses on innovations pursued in a 36 hour 12 week graduate course in higher education entitled “Critical and Reflective Practice”. The authors chronicle their journey to developing a fully online learning community (FOLC) by emphasizing the elements of social, cognitive, emotional and digital spaces that form a moving interplay through the community. In this way, students embrace anywhere anytime learning and often take the learning, as well as the relationships they build and skills they acquire, beyond the digital class into real world situations. We argue that in order to increase student online engagement, pedagogical approaches need to stem from two primary elements, both creativity and critical reflection, that are essential pillars upon which instructors can co-design learning environments with students. The theoretical framework for the paper is based on the interaction and interdependence of Creativity, Intuition, Critical Reflection, Social Constructivism and FOLCs. By leveraging students’ embedded familiarity with a wide variety of technologies, this case study of a graduate level course on critical reflection in education, examines how relationships, quality of work produced, and student engagement can improve by using creative and imaginative pedagogical strategies. The authors examine their professional pedagogical strategies through the lens that the teacher acts as facilitator, guide and co-designer. In a world where students can easily search for and organize information as self-directed processes, creativity and connection can at times be lost in the digitized course environment. The paper concludes by posing further questions as to how institutions of higher education may be challenged to restructure their credit granting courses into more flexible modules, and how students need to be considered an important part of assessment and evaluation strategies. By introducing creativity and critical reflection as central features of the digital learning spaces, notions of best practices in digital teaching and learning emerge.

Keywords: online, pedagogy, learning, communities

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Authors: Narges Solaymani

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Definition of Nurse: Nurse: A person who is educated and skilled in the field of scientific principles and professional skills of health care, treatment, and medical training of patients. Nursing is a very important profession in the societies of the world. Although in the past, all caregivers of the sick and disabled were called nurses, nowadays, a nurse is a person who has a university education in this field. There are nurses in bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in nursing. New courses have been launched in the master's degree based on duty-oriented nurses. A nurse cannot have an independent treatment center but is a member of the treatment team in established treatment centers such as hospitals, clinics, or offices. Nurses can establish counseling centers and provide nursing services at home. According to the standards, the number of nurses should be three times the number of doctors or twice the number of hospital beds, or there should be three nurses for every thousand people. Also, international standards show that in the internal and surgical department, every 4 to 6 patients should have a nurse.

Keywords: nurse, intensive care, CPR, bandage

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Authors: Fidiana Suwitho

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Research and community service is one of important lecturer assignment in Indonesia. This article was made to meet those needs by assisting home industry entrepreneurs of various chips in Banyuwangi. Community service in this scheme are intended to increase the revenue of craftsmen of chips by improving value added of chips through food engineering technology. Ibu Anisa has produced various kinds of chips that are breadfruit chips, banana chips, yam chips, and cassava chips. In business development, Ibu Anisa facing various problems both in terms of production and management aspects. The process of production and management and marketing are still conventional so that increased demand cannot be offset by production capacity. A researcher team of STIESIA has assist partners in the processing stage, from manually to the technologically. This activity has a positive impact to However, this process has not been reached on sustainable marketing aspect, which is where the partners are still difficult to reach a wider market because of limited access.

Keywords: food engineering technology, value added of chips, community service

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Authors: J. H. Boonzaaier, A. C. Brent

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South Africa, a water scarce country, experiences the phenomenon that its life supporting natural water resources is seriously threatened by the users that are totally dependent on it. South Africa is globally applauded to have of the best and most progressive water laws and policies. There are however growing concerns regarding natural water resource quality deterioration and a critical void in the management of natural resources and compliance to policies due to increasing institutional uncertainties and failures. These are in accordance with concerns of many South African researchers and practitioners that call for a change in paradigm from talk to practice and a more constructive, practical approach to governance challenges in the management of water resources. A qualitative theory-building case study through longitudinal action research was conducted from 2014 to 2017. The research assessed whether a strategic positioned institutional agent can be parlayed to facilitate and execute WRM on catchment level by engaging multiple stakeholders in a polycentric setting. Through a critical realist approach a distinction was made between ex ante self-deterministic human behaviour in the realist realm, and ex post governance-management in the constructivist realm. A congruence analysis, including Toulmin’s method of argumentation analysis, was utilised. The study evaluated the unique case of a self-steering local water management institution, the Impala Water Users Association (WUA) in the Pongola River catchment in the northern part of the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa. Exploiting prevailing water resource threats, it expanded its ancillary functions from 20,000 to 300,000 ha. Embarking on WRM activities, it addressed natural water system quality assessments, social awareness, knowledge support, and threats, such as: soil erosion, waste and effluent into water systems, coal mining, and water security dimensions; through structured engagement with 21 different catchment stakeholders. By implementing a proposed polycentric governance-management model on a catchment scale, the WUA achieved to fill the void. It developed a foundation and capacity to protect the resilience of the natural environment that is critical for freshwater resources to ensure long-term water security of the Pongola River basin. Further work is recommended on appropriate statutory delegations, mechanisms of sustainable funding, sufficient penetration of knowledge to local levels to catalyse behaviour change, incentivised support from professionals, back-to-back expansion of WUAs to alleviate scale and cost burdens, and the creation of catchment data monitoring and compilation centres.

Keywords: institutional agent, water governance, polycentric water resource management, water resource management

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Authors: Sara Mahmood, Omar Ahmed, Youssef Aladham, Moustafa Abdelnaby

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The varied complications of COVID-19 present an ongoing challenge to healthcare professionals. A rare presentation of complicated sinusitis with pre-septal cellulitis and hard palatal necrosis in a COVID-19 patient, was reported. A 52-year-old male was admitted to the hospital with typical COVID manifestations where he had two successive COVID-19 positive swabs. During his admission, he developed symptoms of right orbital complications of sinusitis along with both clinical and radiological evidence of ipsilateral hard palatal necrosis. Imaging confirmed a diagnosis of right pan-sinusitis complicated with right pre-septal infection and hard palatal bony defect on the same side. Intra-operatively, the sphenopalatine artery was found to be thrombosed. This case focuses on the possible association between these manifestations and the known thromboembolic complications of COVID-19. Ongoing management of such complicated rare cases should be through a multidisciplinary team.

Keywords: COVID-19, sinusitis, sphenopalatine artery, thrombosis

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Authors: Jasem Al-Safran

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Nowadays Oil and Gas industry considered as one of the biggest industries around the world although it caused a lot of pollution to the world and it caused many damages to the mankind and the other creatures around the globe it still one of the biggest industries, it create millions of careers around the globe which reduced the poorness level and make the mankind life’s much more comfortable you may compare the humans life before the exploration of the oil and after the oil industries development. Construction project’s consist of 3 major sections also we call them EPC projects the first section is the detailed engineering, the second section is the procurements section and finally is the Construction section, each section required a specialized work force with a different skills in order to handle the work load for example in the oil sector and depending on the nature of the project and the project size the Construction team required mechanical engineer, civil engineer, electrical engineer and instrumentation engineer, also a work site supervisor for each disciplines also a huge number of labors, technicians and many equipment’s.

Keywords: Construction, EPC, Project, Work force

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Authors: Amol Lanke, Hadi Hoseinie, Behzad Ghodrati

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OEE has been used in many industries as measure of performance. However due to limitations of original OEE, it has been modified by various researchers. OEE for mining application is special version of classic equation, carries these limitation over. In this paper it has been aimed to modify the OEE for mining application by introducing the weights to the elements of it and termed as Mine Production index (MPi). As a special application of new index MPi shovel has been developed by team of experts and researchers for evaluating the shovel effectiveness. Based on analysis, utilization followed by performance and availability were ranked in this order. To check the applicability of this index, a case study was done on four electrical and one hydraulic shovel in a Swedish mine. The results shows that MPishovelcan properly evaluate production effectiveness of shovels and determine effectiveness values in optimistic view compared to OEE. MPi with calculation not only give the effectiveness but also can predict which elements should be focused for improving the productivity.

Keywords: mining, overall equipment efficiency (OEE), mine production index, shovels

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Authors: Ali Mohammadi

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One of the concerns that employers and contractors have in creating long tunnels is that when the excavation is completed, the tunnel will be exited in the correct position according to designed, the deviation of the tunnel from its path can have many costs for the employer and the contractor, lack of correct calculations by the surveying engineer or the employer and contractors lack of importance to the surveying team in guiding the tunnel can cause the tunnel to deviate from its path and this deviation becomes a disaster. But employers are able to make the right decisions so that the tunnel is guided with the highest precision if they consider some points. We are investigating two tunnels with lengths of 12 and 18 kilometers that were dug by Tunnel boring machine machines to transfer water, how the contractor’s decision to control the 12 kilometer tunnel caused the most accuracy of one centimeter to the next part of the tunnel will be connected. We will also investigate the reasons for the deviation of axis in the 18 km tunnel about 20 meters. Also we review the calculations of surveyor engineers in both tunnels and what challenges there will be in the calculations and teach how to solve these challenges. Surveying calculations are the most important part in controlling long tunnels.

Keywords: UTM, localization, scale factor, traverse

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Authors: Anna Lower, Michal Lower, Robert Masztalski, Agnieszka Szumilas

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Contemporary cities are facing serious congestion and parking problems. In urban transport policy the introduction of the park and ride system (P&R) is an increasingly popular way of limiting vehicular traffic. The determining of P&R facilities location is a key aspect of the system. Criteria for assessing the quality of the selected location are formulated generally and descriptively. The research outsourced to specialists are expensive and time consuming. The most focus is on the examination of a few selected places. The practice has shown that the choice of the location of these sites in a intuitive way without a detailed analysis of all the circumstances, often gives negative results. Then the existing facilities are not used as expected. Methods of location as a research topic are also widely taken in the scientific literature. Built mathematical models often do not bring the problem comprehensively, e.g. assuming that the city is linear, developed along one important communications corridor. The paper presents a new method where the expert knowledge is applied to fuzzy inference model. With such a built system even a less experienced person could benefit from it, e.g. urban planners, officials. The analysis result is obtained in a very short time, so a large number of the proposed location can also be verified in a short time. The proposed method is intended for testing of car parks location in a city. The paper will show selected examples of locations of the P&R facilities in cities planning to introduce the P&R. The analysis of existing objects will also be shown in the paper and they will be confronted with the opinions of the system users, with particular emphasis on unpopular locations. The research are executed using the fuzzy inference model which was built and described in more detail in the earlier paper of the authors. The results of analyzes are compared to documents of P&R facilities location outsourced by the city and opinions of existing facilities users expressed on social networking sites. The research of existing facilities were conducted by means of the fuzzy model. The results are consistent with actual users feedback. The proposed method proves to be good, but does not require the involvement of a large experts team and large financial contributions for complicated research. The method also provides an opportunity to show the alternative location of P&R facilities. The performed studies show that the method has been confirmed. The method can be applied in urban planning of the P&R facilities location in relation to the accompanying functions. Although the results of the method are approximate, they are not worse than results of analysis of employed experts. The advantage of this method is ease of use, which simplifies the professional expert analysis. The ability of analyzing a large number of alternative locations gives a broader view on the problem. It is valuable that the arduous analysis of the team of people can be replaced by the model's calculation. According to the authors, the proposed method is also suitable for implementation on a GIS platform.

Keywords: fuzzy logic inference, park and ride system, P&R facilities, P&R location

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Authors: Sahil Anand, John Luetke, Nikhil Venkatesh, Dorothy Wong

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Trust plays an important role in building and sustaining long-term relationships between people. In this paper, we present a robot that communicates using nonverbal behaviors such as facial expressions and body movements. Our study reports on an experiment in which participants were asked to team up with the robot to perform specific tasks. We varied the expressivity of the robot and measured the effects on trust, quality of interactions as well as on the praising and punishing behavior of the participant towards the robot. We found that participants developed a stronger affinity towards the expressive robot, but did not show any significant differences in the level of trust. When the same robot made mistakes, participants unconsciously punished it with lesser intensity compared to the neutral robot. The results emphasize the role of expressive behaviors on participant’s perception of the robot and also on the quality of interactions between humans and robots.

Keywords: human-robot interaction, nonverbal communication, relationships, social robot, trust

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Authors: Lin Ji

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The 1923 HSBC Building is one of the landmarks of Shanghai's Bund complex and is described as "one of the finest buildings from the Suez Canal to the Bering Strait". Mr George Leopold Wilson of Palmer&Turner and his design team combine the latest British design taste with Chinese elements and bring the high standard of London manufacturing to Shanghai. This paper reviews the establishment background and construction process of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank Corporation in Shanghai, and analyzes the characteristics of various styles and ornament of HSBC. At the same time, using the research method of iconography, compared with Britain's exploration of modern design mode in the early 20th century, we can deeply understand how this "monument of world commerce and prosperity" realizes the identity construction of its financial empire in the Far East in the perfect combination of practicality and artistry.

Keywords: early 20-century Shanghai, the bund, the HSBC building, classical styles, ornament, identity construction

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Authors: Chia-Yi Wu, Jung-Chen Chang, Wen-Yu Hu, Ming-Been Lee

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In nearly all physical health conditions, suicide risk is increased compared to healthy people even after adjustment for age, gender, mental health, and substance use diagnoses. In order to highlight the importance of suicide risk assessment for the inpatients and early identification and engagement for inpatients’ mental health problems, a study was designed aiming at developing a comprehensive psychosomatic nursing engagement (PSNE) model with standardized operation procedures informing how nurses communicate, assess, and engage with the inpatients with emotional distress. The purpose of the study was to promote the gatekeeping role of clinical nurses in performing brief assessment and interventions to detect depression and anxiety symptoms among the inpatients, particularly in non-psychiatric wards. The study will be carried out in a 2000-bed university hospital in Northern Taiwan in 2019. We will select a ward for trial and develop feasible procedures and in-job training course for the nurses to offer mental health care, which will also be validated through professional consensus meeting. The significance of the study includes the following three points: (1) The study targets at an important but less-researched area of PSNE model in the cultural background of Taiwan, where hospital service is highly accessible, but mental health and suicide risk assessment are hardly provided by non-psychiatric healthcare personnel. (2) The issue of PSNE could be efficient and cost-effective in the identification of suicide risks at an early stage to prevent inpatient suicide or to reduce future suicide risk by early treatment of mental illnesses among the high-risk group of hospitalized patients who are more than three-times lethal to suicide. (3) Utilizing a brief tool with its established APP ('The Five-item Brief Symptom Rating Scale, BSRS-5'), we will invent the standardized procedure of PSNE and referral steps in collaboration with the medical teams across the study hospital. New technological tools nested within nursing assessment/intervention will concurrently be invented to facilitate better care quality. The major outcome measurements will include tools for early identification of common mental distress and suicide risks, i.e., the BSRS-5, revised BSRS-5, and the 9-item Concise Mental Health Checklist (CMHC-9). The main purpose of using the CMHC-9 in clinical suicide risk assessment is mainly to provide care and build-up therapeutic relationship with the client, so it will also be used to nursing training highlighting the skills of supportive care. Through early identification of the inpatients’ depressive symptoms or other mental health care needs such as insomnia, anxiety, or suicide risk, the majority of the nursing clinicians would be able to engage in critical interventions that alleviate the inpatients’ suffering from mental health problems, given a feasible nursing input.

Keywords: mental health care, clinical outcome improvement, clinical nurses, suicide prevention, psychosomatic nursing

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Authors: Fabio L. Vieira, Micaelle F. C. Lemos, Luciano C. Lemos, Rafaela S. Oliveira, Ian A. Cunha

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Brazil has some challenges ahead related to population oral health, most of them associated with the need of expanding into the local level its promotion and prevention activities, offer equal access to services and promote changes in the lifestyle of the population. The program implemented an oral health initiative in public schools in the city of Salvador, Bahia. The mission was to improve oral health among students on primary and secondary education, from 2 to 15 years old, using the school as a pathway to increase access to healthcare. The main actions consisted of a team's visit to the schools with educational sessions for dental cavity prevention and individual assessment. The program incorporated a clinical surveillance component through a dental evaluation of every student searching for dental disease and caries, standardization of the dentists’ team to reach uniform classification on the assessments, and the use of an online platform to register data directly from the schools. Sequentially, the students with caries were referred for free clinical treatment on the program’s Health Centre. The primary purpose of this study was to analyze the effects and outcomes of this school-based oral health program. The study sample was composed by data of a period of 3 years - 2015 to 2017 - from 13 public schools on the suburb of the city of Salvador with a total number of assessments of 9,278 on this period. From the data collected the prevalence of children with decay on permanent teeth was chosen as the most reliable indicator. The prevalence was calculated for each one of the 13 schools using the number of children with 1 or more dental caries on permanent teeth divided by the total number of students assessed for school each year. Then the percentage change per year was calculated for each school. Some schools presented a higher variation on the total number of assessments in one of the three years, so for these, the percentage change calculation was done using the two years with less variation. The results show that 10 of the 13 schools presented significative improvements for the indicator of caries in permanent teeth. The mean for the number of students with caries percentage reduction on the 13 schools was 26.8%, and the median was 32.2% caries in permanent teeth institution. The highest percentage of improvement reached a decrease of 65.6% on the indicator. Three schools presented a rise in caries prevalence (8.9, 18.9 and 37.2% increase) that, on an initial analysis, seems to be explained with the students’ cohort rotation among other schools, as well as absenteeism on the treatment. In conclusion, the program shows a relevant impact on the reduction of caries in permanent teeth among students and the need for the continuity and expansion of this integrated healthcare approach. It has also been evident the significative of the articulation between health and educational systems representing a fundamental approach to improve healthcare access for children especially in scenarios such as presented in Brazil.

Keywords: primary care, public health, oral health, school-based oral health, data management

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Authors: P. Brunne, K. Ciechowska, K. Gajc, K. Gawin, M. Gawin, M. Kania, J. Kindracki, Z. Kusznierewicz, D. Pączkowska, F. Perczyński, K. Pilarski, D. Rafało, E. Ryszawa, M. Sobiecki, I. Uwarowa

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Big amount of space debris constitutes nowadays a real thread for operating space crafts; therefore the main purpose of PW-Sat2’ team was to create a system that could help cleanse the Earth’s orbit after each small satellites’ mission. After 4 years of development, the motorless, low energy consumption and low weight system has been created. During series of tests, the system has shown high reliable efficiency. The PW-Sat2’s deorbit system is a square-shaped sail which covers an area of 4m². The sail surface is made of 6 μm aluminized Mylar film which is stretched across 4 diagonally placed arms, each consisting of two C-shaped flat springs and enveloped in Mylar sleeves. The sail is coiled using a special, custom designed folding stand that provides automation and repeatability of the sail unwinding tests and placed in a container with inner diameter of 85 mm. In the final configuration the deorbit system weights ca. 600 g and occupies 0.6U (in accordance with CubeSat standard). The sail’s releasing system requires minimal amount of power based on thermal knife that burns out the Dyneema wire, which holds the system before deployment. The Sail is being pushed out of the container within a safe distance (20 cm away) from the satellite. The energy for the deployment is completely assured by coiled C-shaped flat springs, which during the release, unfold the sail surface. To avoid dynamic effects on the satellite’s structure, there is the rotational link between the sail and satellite’s main body. To obtain complete knowledge about complex dynamics of the deployment, a number of experiments have been performed in varied environments. The numerical model of the dynamics of the Sail’s deployment has been built and is still under continuous development. Currently, the integration of the flight model and Deorbit Sail is performed. The launch is scheduled for February 2018. At the same time, in cooperation with United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, sail models and requested facilities are being prepared for the sail deployment experiment under micro-gravity and low pressure conditions at Bremen Drop Tower, Germany. Results of those tests will provide an ultimate and wide knowledge about deployment in space environment to which system will be exposed during its mission. Outcomes of the numerical model and tests will be compared afterwards and will help the team in building a reliable and correct model of a very complex phenomenon of deployment of 4 c-shaped flat springs with surface attached. The verified model could be used inter alia to investigate if the PW-Sat2’s sail is scalable and how far is it possible to go with enlarging when creating systems for bigger satellites.

Keywords: cubesat, deorbitation, sail, space, debris

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Authors: Abdullah Alshehab

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Governments worldwide are intensely focused on digitizing public transactions to establish reliable e-government services. The advent of new digital technologies and ongoing advancements in ICT have profoundly transformed business operations. Citizen engagement and participation in e-government services are crucial for the system's success. However, it is essential to measure and enhance citizen satisfaction levels to effectively evaluate and improve these systems. Citizen satisfaction is a key criterion that allows government institutions to assess the quality of their services. There is a strong connection between information quality, service quality, and system quality, all of which directly impact user satisfaction. Additionally, both system quality and information quality have indirect effects on citizen satisfaction. A causal map, which is a network diagram representing causes and effects, can illustrate these relationships. According to the literature, the main factors influencing citizen satisfaction are trust, reliability, citizen support, convenience, and transparency. This paper investigates the causal relationships among these factors and identifies any interrelatedness between them.

Keywords: e-government services, e-satisfaction, citizen satisfaction, causal map.

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Authors: Miranda Lin

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This project examined the impact of a globally focused service-learning project implemented in a multicultural education course in a Midwestern university. This project facilitated critical self-reflection and build cross-cultural competence while nurturing a partnership with two schools that serve students with disabilities in Vietnam. Through a service-learning project, pre-service teachers connected via Skype with the principals/teachers at schools in Vietnam to identify and subsequently develop needed instructional materials for students with mild, moderate, and severe disabilities. Qualitative data sources include students’ intercultural competence self-reflection survey (pre-test and post-test), reflections, discussions, service project, and lesson plans. Literature Review- Global service-learning is a teaching strategy that encompasses service experiences both in the local community and abroad. Drawing on elements of global learning and international service-learning, global service-learning experiences are guided by a framework that is designed to support global learning outcomes and involve direct engagement with difference. By engaging in real-world challenges, global service-learning experiences can support the achievement of learning outcomes such as civic. Knowledge and intercultural knowledge and competence. Intercultural competence development is considered essential for cooperative and reciprocal engagement with community partners.Method- Participants (n=27*) were mostly elementary and early childhood pre-service teachers who were enrolled in a multicultural education course. All but one was female. Among the pre-service teachers, one Asian American, two Latinas, and the rest were White. Two pre-service teachers identified themselves as from the low socioeconomic families and the rest were from the middle to upper middle class.The global service-learning project was implemented in the spring of 2018. Two Vietnamese schools that served students with disabilities agreed to be the global service-learning sites. Both schools were located in an urban city.Systematic collection of data coincided with the course schedule as follows: an initial intercultural competence self-reflection survey completed in week one, guided reflections submitted in week 1, 9, and 16, written lesson plans and supporting materials for the service project submitted in week 16, and a final intercultural competence self-reflection survey completed in week 16. Significance-This global service-learning project has helped participants meet Merryfield’s goals in various degrees. They 1) learned knowledge and skills in the basics of instructional planning, 2) used a variety of instructional methods that encourage active learning, meet the different learning styles of students, and are congruent with content and educational goals, 3) gained the awareness and support of their students as individuals and as learners, 4) developed questioning techniques that build higher-level thinking skills, and 5) made progress in critically reflecting on and improving their own teaching and learning as a professional educator as a result of this project.

Keywords: global service-learning, teacher education, intercultural competence, diversity

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Authors: Dragos Ardeleanu, Silviu-Valentin Petre

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Written to satisfy the needs of Western powers, classical geopolitics bore the stint of Eurocentrism. Both Mackinder’s heartland and Nicholas Spykman’s rimland were intellectual creations set for the purpose of the Anglophone nations dealing with Eurasia. However, while today’s world is moving towards multipolarity, other emerging regional actors are following their own interests using a different geospatial map. Such is the case of Iran which has developed an engagement pattern in Africa, directed mostly towards costal states, in order to break the rimland grip of Arab states and also the international pressure established against Tehran’s nascent nuclear program. Capitalizing on literature review and analysing statements from key public figures, our paper argues that Iranian African geopolitics displays a dual message: on the one hand, it uses tiers-mondiste rhetoric to garner the support of different coastal African states and, on the other hand, it employs Shiism to gain a foothold in strategic parts of the black continent.

Keywords: African geopolitics, Iran, Shiism, tiers-mondisme

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Authors: Carla Teixeira, Diana Azevedo, Jonatas Bessa, Maria Guilam

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The flipped classroom is a blended learning modality that combines face-to-face and virtual activities of self-learning, mediated by digital information and communication technologies, which reverses traditional teaching approaches and presents, as a presupposition, the previous study of contents by students. In the following face-to-face activities, the contents are discussed, producing active learning. This work aims to describe the systematization process of the use of flipped classrooms as a method to develop complementary national activities in PROFSAÚDE, a professional master's program in the area of public health, offered as a distance learning course, in the network, in Brazil. The complementary national activities were organized with the objective of strengthening and qualifying students´ learning process. The network gathers twenty-two public institutions of higher education in the country. Its national coordination conducted a survey to detect complementary educational needs, supposed to improve the formative process and align important content sums for the program nationally. The activities were organized both asynchronously, making study materials available in Google classrooms, and synchronously in a tele presential way, organized on virtual platforms to reach the largest number of students in the country. The asynchronous activities allowed each student to study at their own pace and the synchronous activities were intended for deepening and reflecting on the themes. The national team identified some professors' areas of expertise, who were contacted for the production of audiovisual content such as video classes and podcasts, guidance for supporting bibliographic materials and also to conduct synchronous activities together with the technical team. The contents posted in the virtual classroom were organized by modules and made available before the synchronous meeting; these modules, in turn, contain “pills of experience” that correspond to reports of teachers' experiences in relation to the different themes. In addition, activity was proposed, with questions aimed to expose doubts about the contents and a learning challenge, as a practical exercise. Synchronous activities are built with different invited teachers, based on the participants 'discussions, and are the forum where teachers can answer students' questions, providing feedback on the learning process. At the end of each complementary activity, an evaluation questionnaire is available. The responses analyses show that this institutional network experience, as pedagogical innovation, provides important tools to support teaching and research due to its potential in the participatory construction of learning, optimization of resources, the democratization of knowledge and sharing and strengthening of practical experiences on the network. One of its relevant aspects was the thematic diversity addressed through this method.

Keywords: active learning, flipped classroom, network education experience, pedagogic innovation

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Authors: Jasim Saleh Said AlDairi

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The potential of applying Lean Management in Higher Education Institutions has increased significantly in last few years, leading to tremendous savings. Reviewing and updating competencies’ curriculum matrix is one of the critical and complicated processes that consume time and effort, and this has triggered searching for a scientific and sustainable approach to manage the such review. This paper presents a novel approach of implementing Lean (5S) methodology in reviewing technical competencies required for the graduates of the Military Technological College (MTC) in the Sultanate of Oman. The 5S framework has been imbedded into an action plan using the PDCA cycle. As a result, the method applied has helped in sorting out the actual required competencies, the team has identified the required (new, amended, and deleted) competencies in all of the targeted Engineering Departments, in addition, the major wastes within the overall process were identified, and the future review process was standardized and documented.

Keywords: PDCA, 5S, lean, MTC, competencies, curriculum matrix, higher education

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Authors: Stephen Bahooshy

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Co-producing services with the people that access them is considered best practice in the United Kingdom, with the Care Act 2014 arguing that people who access services and their carers should be involved in the design, commissioning and delivery of services. Co-production is a way of working with the community, breaking down barriers of access and providing meaningful opportunity for people to engage. Unfortunately, owing to a number of reported factors such as time constraints, practitioner experience and departmental budget restraints, this process is not always followed. In 2019, in a south London borough, d/Deaf people who access services were engaged in the design, commissioning and delivery of an information and advice service that would support their community to access local government services. To do this, sensory impairment social workers and commissioners collaborated to host a series of engagement events with the d/Deaf community. Interpreters were used to enable communication between the commissioners and d/Deaf participants. Initially, the community’s opinions, ideas and requirements were noted. This was then summarized and fed back to the community to ensure accuracy. Subsequently, a service specification was developed which included performance metrics, inclusive of qualitative and quantitative indicators, such as ‘I statements’, whereby participants respond on an adapted Likert scale how much they agree or disagree with a particular statement in relation to their experience of the service. The service specification was reviewed by a smaller group of d/Deaf residents and social workers, to ensure that it met the community’s requirements. The service was then tendered using the local authority’s e-tender process. Bids were evaluated and scored in two parts; part one was by commissioners and social workers and part two was a presentation by prospective providers to an evaluation panel formed of four d/Deaf residents. The internal evaluation panel formed 75% of the overall score, whilst the d/Deaf resident evaluation panel formed 25% of the overall tender score. Co-producing the evaluation panel with social workers and the d/Deaf community meant that commissioners were able to meet the requirements of this community by developing evaluation questions and tools that were easily understood and use by this community. For example, the wording of questions were reviewed and the scoring mechanism consisted of three faces to reflect the d/Deaf residents’ scores instead of traditional numbering. These faces were a happy face, a neutral face and a sad face. By making simple changes to the commissioning and tender evaluation process, d/Deaf people were able to have meaningful involvement in the design and commissioning process for a service that would benefit their community. Co-produced performance metrics means that it is incumbent on the successful provider to continue to engage with people accessing the service and ensure that the feedback is utilized. d/Deaf residents were grateful to have been involved in this process as this was not an opportunity that they had previously been afforded. In recognition of their time, each d/Deaf resident evaluator received a £40 gift voucher, bringing the total cost of this co-production to £160.

Keywords: co-production, community engagement, deaf and hearing impaired, service design

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Authors: Rohan Erasala, Ian McCulloh

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The NFL Draft is a chance for every NFL team to select their next superstar. As a result, teams heavily invest in scouting, and millions of fans partake in the online discourse surrounding the draft. This paper investigates the potential correlations between positive sentiment in individual draft selection threads from the subreddit r/NFL and if this data can be used to make successful player recommendations. It is hypothesized that there will be limited correlations and nonviable recommendations made from these threads. The hypothesis is tested using sentiment analysis of draft thread comments and analyzing correlation and precision at k of top scores. The results indicate weak correlations between the percentage of positive comments in a draft selection thread and a player’s approximate value, but potentially viable recommendations from looking at players whose draft selection threads have the highest percentage of positive comments.

Keywords: national football league, NFL, NFL Draft, sentiment analysis, Reddit, social media, NLP

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Authors: Elijah Cavan

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In Major League Sports (MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL), it is the Front Office Staff (FOS) who make decisions about who plays for their respective team. The FOS bear the brunt of the responsibility for acquiring players through drafting, trading and signing players in free agency while typically contesting with maximum roster salary constraints. The players themselves are volatile assets of these teams- their value fluctuates with age and performance. A simple comparison can be made when viewing players as assets. The problem here is similar to that of optimizing your investment portfolio. The The goal is ultimately to maximize your periodic returns while tolerating a fixed risk (degree of uncertainty/ potential loss). Each franchise may value assets differently, and some may only tolerate lower risk levels- these are examples of factors that introduce additional constraints into the model. In this talk, we will detail the mathematical formulation of this problem as a constrained optimization problem- which can be solved with classical machine learning methods but is also well posed as a problem to be solved on quantum computers

Keywords: optimization, financial mathematics, sports analytics, simulated annealing

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Authors: Kelly Jaunzems

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Social media is a powerful instrument of communication, enabling the presentation of information in multiple forms and modes, amplifying the interactions between people, organisations, and stakeholders, and increasing the range of communication channels available. Younger generations are highly engaged with social media and more likely to use this channel than any other to seek information. Given this, it may appear extraordinary that occupational safety and health professionals have yet to seriously engage with social media for communicating safety messages to younger audiences who, in many industries, might be statistically more likely to encounter more workplace harm or injury. Millennials, defined as those born between 1981-2000, have distinctive characteristics that also impact their interaction patterns rendering many traditional occupational safety and health communication channels sub-optimal or near obsolete. Used to immediate responses, 280-character communication, shares, likes, and visual imagery, millennials struggle to take seriously the low-tech, top-down communication channels such as safety noticeboards, toolbox meetings, and passive tick-box online inductions favoured by traditional OSH professionals. This paper draws upon well-established communication findings, which argue that it is important to know a target audience and reach them using their preferred communication pathways, particularly if the aim is to impact attitudes and behaviours. Health practitioners have adopted social media as a communication channel with great success, yet safety practitioners have failed to follow this lead. Using a digital ethnography approach, this paper examines seven organisations’ Facebook posts from two one-month periods one year apart, one in 2018 and one in 2019. Each of the years informs organisation-based case studies. Comparing, contrasting, and drawing upon these case studies, the paper discusses and evaluates the (non) use of social media communication of safety information in terms of user engagement, shareability, and overall appeal. The success of health practitioners’ use of social media provides a compelling template for the implementation of social media into organisations’ safety communication strategies. Highly visible content such as that found on social media allows an organization to become more responsive and engage in two-way conversations with their audience, creating more engaged and participatory conversations around safety. Further, using social media to address younger audiences with a range of tonal qualities (for example, the use of humour) can achieve cut through in a way that grim statistics fail to do. On the basis of 18 months of interviews, filed work, and data analysis, the paper concludes with recommendations for communicating safety information via social media. It proposes exploration of the social media communication formula that, when utilised by safety practitioners, may create an effective social media presence. It is anticipated that such social media use will increase engagement, expand the number of followers and reduce the likelihood and severity of safety-related incidents. The tools offered may provide a path for safety practitioners to reach a disengaged generation of workers to build a cohesive and inclusive conversation around ways to keep people safe at work.

Keywords: social media, workplace safety, communication strategies, young workers

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Authors: Christy M. Moen, Richard B. Townsley

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Introduction: Metastasis to the frontal bone in thyroid cancer is extremely rare. A literature review found only six cases of thyroid cancer that metastasised to the frontal bone, with two of those involving further bone sites. Case Report: The patient was originally referred to the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery team with an isolated mass on her forehead. Biopsies were performed, which showed this was likely a metastatic deposit from thyroid cancer. CT-PET scan showed this was an isolated lesion. The patient had a total thyroidectomy, and the forehead lesion was managed with radiotherapy. On interval scanning, the patient’s bony lesion had increased in size and had new lung nodules, which likely represented further metastasis. Conclusion: Isolated bony metastases to the frontal bone are rare. An important clinical principle to remember is that a bony metastasis from an unknown primary is more likely than primary bone cancer.

Keywords: cancer, thyroid, head and neck, surgery

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Authors: Gaoussou Doukoure Abdel Kader, Mnkandla Ernest

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This research aims to investigate the usage of a personal software process oriented information system in order to facilitate the promotion of software quality and its improvement in organizations. In this light, at the term of a literature review on software quality and related concepts, the personal software process is discussed, more particularly in terms of software quality. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with a team of software engineers on the first hand to establish a baseline on their understanding of what quality entails for them. The PSP methodology will then be presented to the engineers in its most basic aspects. The research will then proceed to practical case study where a PSP oriented information system is submitted to engineers for usage throughout their development process. Reports from the PSP information system as well as feedback from the engineers will be used in conjunction with the theoretical foundation to establish a PSP inspired framework for software quality promotion and improvement.

Keywords: information communication technology, personal software process, software quality, process quality, software engineering

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Authors: Avatharam Ganivada, Krishna Shah

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The Mask R-CNN is recently introduced by the team of Facebook AI Research (FAIR), which is mainly concerned with instance segmentation in images. Here, the Mask R-CNN is based on ResNet and feature pyramid network (FPN), where a single dropout method is employed. This paper provides a modified Mask R-CNN by adding multiple dropout methods into the Mask R-CNN. The proposed model has also utilized the concepts of Resnet and FPN to extract stage-wise network feature maps, wherein a top-down network path having lateral connections is used to obtain semantically strong features. The proposed model produces three outputs for each object in the image: class label, bounding box coordinates, and object mask. The performance of the proposed network is evaluated in the segmentation of every instance in images using COCO and cityscape datasets. The proposed model achieves better performance than the state-of-the-networks for the datasets.

Keywords: instance segmentation, object detection, convolutional neural networks, deep learning, computer vision

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Authors: Yi-Jiun Chou, Ying-Hsuan Li, Yi-Jung Liu, Hsin-Yu Chiang, Hsuan-Ching Wang

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Background: Patients received therapeutic hypothermia (TH) after resuscitation from cardiac arrest are more dependent on continue and intensive nursing care. It involves many difficult steps, especially achieving target body temperature. To our best knowledge, there is no consensus or recommended standards on nursing practice of TH. Aim: The aim of this study is to increase the completion rate of nursing care at therapeutic hypothermia. Methods: We took five measures: (1) Amendment of nursing standards of therapeutic hypothermia; (2) Amendment of TH checklist items to nursing records; (3) Establishment of monitor procedure; (4) Design each period of TH care reminder cards; (5) Providing in-service training sections of TH for ICU nursing staff. Outcomes: The completion rate of nursing care at therapeutic hypothermia increased from 78.1% to 89.3%. Conclusion: The project team not only increased the completion rate but also improved patient safety and quality of care.

Keywords: therapeutic hypothermia, nursing, critical care, quality of care

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Authors: D. Romero Espitia

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Research on peacebuilding has taken a critical turn into examining the neoliberal and hegemonic conception of peace operations. Alternative peacebuilding models have been analyzed, but the scholarly discussion fails to bring them together or form connections between them. The objective of this paper is to rethink peacebuilding by extracting the positive aspects of the various peacebuilding models, connecting them with the local context, and therefore promote emancipation in contemporary peacebuilding efforts. Moreover, local ownership has been widely labelled as one, if not the core principle necessary for a successful peacebuilding project. Yet, definitions of what constitutes the 'local' remain debated. Through a qualitative review of literature, this paper unpacks the contemporary conception of peacebuilding in nexus with 'local ownership' as manifested through civil society. Using Colombia as a case study, this paper argues that a new peacebuilding framework, one that reconsiders the terms of engagement between international and national actors, is needed in order to foster effective peacebuilding efforts in contested transitional states.

Keywords: civil society, Colombia, emancipation, peacebuilding

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Authors: Sergei Kosarev

Abstract:

Wrong treatment tactics for hand and wrist sport-related injuries can lead to the inability to play sports in the future. It is especially important for professional athletes. The members of the Russian Olympic Team are treated in our hospital -Federal Clinical Research Center (Moscow). For their treatment, we use minimally invasive methods such as wrist arthroscopy and also orthobiologics procedures. In 2022 we had cases with scaphoid fracture and TFCC injuries. In all the cases, we were using the arthroscopy technic for treatment. The scaphoid fracture was fixed by K-wires with free bone grafting. For TFCC injures we used transossal sutures. Rehabilitation started the next day after surgery. Rehabilitation included hand therapy and physiotherapy. All athletes returned to the sport after 8-12 weeks after surgery. One of them had pain in the wrist after 12 weeks after surgery, not more than 4 point VAS. Pain syndrome was blocked after 2 PRP injections in the ulnar side of the wrist.

Keywords: sport trauma, wrist arthroscopy, wrist pain, scaphoid fracture

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Authors: Ahmed Boujdad

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‎ Morocco, a North African nation known for its rich culture and diverse landscapes, is facing evolving challenges related to cardiovascular health and behavioral well-being. Against this backdrop, the paper aims to spotlight the insights emerging from Moroccan research into the impacts of aerobic exercise on cardiovascular physiology and psychological outcomes. Presentations will encompass a range of topics, including exercise-induced adaptations in heart function, blood pressure management, and vascular health specific to the Moroccan population. A notable focus of the paper will be the examination of how aerobic exercise intertwines with Moroccan behavioral patterns and sociocultural factors. The research will delve into the links between regular exercise and its potential to alleviate stress, anxiety, and depression in the Moroccan context. This exploration extends to the role of exercise in bolstering the cultural fabric of Moroccan society, enhancing community engagement, and promoting a sense of well-being.

Keywords: event-related potential‎, executive function, physical activity, kinesiology

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